The Thousand Sunny Day Care and Rest Home
by Mr Khan
Summary: A run-in with Jewelry Bonney leaves Usopp in charge of three little kids, a baby reindeer, and four crotchety seniors, as well as the sole responsibility for fixing them. Now Complete!
1. Sneak Attack

The Thousand Sunny Day Care and Rest Home

By Mr Khan

_I arrived at the idea for this after thinking of possibilities for what will happen once the (finally happening, yay!) reunion is completed and the Straw Hats proceed to the New World. I pondered a run-in with Jewelry Bonney, though this was before we learned of Bonney's defeat and arrest. Either way, this story is still a good idea. Plus its a chance for me to explore writing Usopp, something i've always wanted to do, but could never come up with a good plot for._

Chapter 1: Sneak Attack

"I've come down with I-can't-go-in-the-crow's-nest disease!" Usopp declared. "Somebody else will have to go!"

"Damnit, just go," Sanji replied. "We all drew straws, and it's your night to be lookout."

"But how can a lookout be any good in this mist anyway?"

"We'll need it even more," said Franky. "If another ship is in the area, it might hit us. Though it won't do much damage to our supah hull."

"B-b-but how will I be able to tell if there's an intruder?"

"Relax," Sanji chided, "there's nobody in the mist."

"Unless there's someone in the mist," added Zoro with a wolfish grin.

"You could probably tell if it's us or not by our silhouettes," Chopper put in helpfully. That was true enough, as many of the straw-hats had unique shapes.

"I guess…" Usopp finally relented. "But…"

"Just get up there!" Nami shouted. "I'll be up to relieve you at 2:00!" She was crabby as she too had drawn a short straw and had to share lookout duty. She shoved him in the direction of the ladder. "Good night!"

"Yeah, yeah," Usopp grumbled as he ascended the ladder. The night watch had become much more formal since the reunion. Before that, it had usually been "let Zoro do it while he trains," but they were all a little shaken after the disaster at Sabaody Archipelago. Though no-one admitted, it was evidenced by the new two-shift night watches that were well-organized. Currently the _Thousand Sunny_ was traveling through a tricky bit of sea, constantly covered by mist and scattered with treacherous reefs. Passable for the Sunny's invincible Adam-Wood hull, but impassable for most other ships. This passage was a shortcut through this part of the Grand Line and allowed them to avoid a marine base in the bargain. They had dropped anchor for the night about halfway through this misty belt, hidden from the rest of the world.

Well, mostly. One ship had been brave or foolhardy enough to follow them in: a ship captained by the notorious Jewelry Bonney. Bonney had sworn she would face the straw-hats in the New World. Their idiocy had almost doomed her back at Sabaody. When she heard that they had gone through Sabaody again, she ordered her crew to go back towards the Red Line to head them off. Her crew protested, but she convinced them by saying that the straw-hats' idealistic stupidity would only bring further calamity to them and every self-respecting pirate in the area. They wouldn't be safe if nuts like Luffy and that idiot swordsman of theirs were going around provoking the powers that be. They had proceeded into the misty belt carefully, determined to stop the straw-hats once and for all.

Their ship got as close to the _Sunny_ as they dared in the mist, then deployed their jolly-boat. Her landing party, only four counting herself, tossed up grappling hooks that her ship's engineer had repurposed for stealth, giving them retractable claws that he then nestled in a ball of yarn so that they could be tossed silently, but still work. She nodded to her crewmates, who dispersed silently about the ship while she took a bite out of a whole ham that she had brought with her. Her crewmates returned quickly.

"They're all asleep," one whispered.

"You're absolutely sure?" she replied. The crewmate in question looked uncertain. "Eh," Bonney sighed quietly, "As long as they're anywhere on the ship, they should be in range." She took another loud chomp out of her ham, causing her crewmates to cringe. "Let's get started." She closed her eyes and clasped her hands, wearing a contemplative expression that was extraordinarily rare for her. It was also extraordinarily rare for her to use this ability, an ability more potent but less precise than her powers usually were. It was an ability that defied even the most learned devil-fruit researchers. When he had heard of it, Dr. Vegapunk himself had sent her a letter saying that she would not only be given amnesty, but have her own bounty paid to her, if she would go to his lab so he could study this particular ability of hers. It was rarely used because it required stealth, something that the loud-mouthed Bonney never really adapted to. The stealth requirement in turn was because she needed about four and a half minutes to successfully pull it off. But with the straw-hats asleep, she would easily be able to do it.

Four and a half minutes later, it was done. Bonney resumed eating her ham. "Captain, come on!" one crewmate whispered, pulling on her arm. "You said we had to get out of there quickly once you were done!"

Bonney frowned. She had had to hold off on eating that ham for a whole four and a half minutes. Four minutes and thirty seconds of having a ham so close to her, but not being able to eat it. But she saw the wisdom in her crewmate's words. The straw-hats should be helpless by now, but it would be troublesome if they saw her anyway, as at least half of them might be able to identify her, despite their new condition. She and the others fled to the jolly-boat, and then she resumed eating the ham quite messily. Mission complete: now she could resume her journey through the New World without worrying about the straw-hats bringing the wrath of Marine HQ down on her.

Usopp's fear had lessened as the night proceeded. Initially he found himself constantly darting back to the window in fear, but he eventually calmed, busying himself with making more firebird stars. About halfway through the shift he thought he heard footsteps and peered down. In the mist he saw a vague outline of a figure with a hat, holding what looked like a large chunk of meat. Sanji wouldn't be pleased about it, but it wasn't an intruder. About five minutes later, Usopp heard a loud chomp, and looked again to see the mist-walker walking away. Usopp returned to his work. _This lookout stuff isn't too hard,_ he thought.

2:00 rolled around and Nami failed to appear. Usopp waited a further five minutes, then left. "Geez," he grumbled. "How does she think she'll get away with this? If I were holding her up, she'd never let me hear the end of it." He descended the ladder and went to the second floor of the _Sunny,_ determined to rouse Nami so he could go to bed.

He reached the girls' bedroom door and hesitated. This was sacred ground, viciously defended (more by Nami) against the likes of Sanji and Brook. Even though he was quite angry at Nami for shirking her duty, he was a little scared of both of them. Okay, more than a little. He was especially scared of potentially waking up Robin, given that he wasn't sure he had ever seen her sleeping, and wondered what kind of wrath he might awaken if he disturbed the morbid archaeologist. Robin had actually slept more lately, he realized, another thing that was out of place since the reunion.

Anger and fear fought within him for a while when another element prompted him to act: concern. As his hand hesitated before banging on the door, he heard a quiet snuffling. Was that… crying? "Oi, Nami," he whispered, knocking softly. "Nami? Robin?"

He heard a frightened yelp within, then more sniffling. Care for his nakama drove him to do what anger could not, and he slowly opened the door, poking his long nose through. He wasn't sure he had ever been in here. In the dark he saw two beds, one unoccupied, though he couldn't see who was in the one bed.

"Nami, Nami?" he whispered. "Robin?"

"Jiisan!" came a shout, then Usopp found himself under attack by something small that clamped onto his midriff forcibly.

"Ahh!" Usopp screamed. "Attack! Get off get off get off!" He seized the thing that had seized him and flung it off, then scrambled to the bureau. He fumbled around and found a lamp, then lit it. Revealed was a little, huddling mass, clothed in a one-piece maroon sundress.

"I'm sorry, Jiisan!" it, well, she (Usopp guessed) said, turning towards him. "Don't hit me, I didn't do it!" Usopp saw it was a little girl. For a moment he looked back at her frightened face, then saw it: a thin nose and almond-shaped blue eyes, slightly bigger and rounder than he was used to, a face he had seen only once, in a now-outdated Wanted poster.

"Robin?" he asked.

Robin, for the girl was indeed Nico Robin, stopped crying and looked at him. "You're not Jiisan!" she declared, an edge to her voice that was all Robin. "Who are you? Did you do this to Roji-baasan? Dos fleur!"

Two little hands sprouted up out of Usopp's shoulders, still too small to grip all of his neck, though they tried. "Oi oi, stop stop stop!" Usopp panicked, deflecting the little arms which dissolved. "Slow down! It's me, Usopp!"

"U-sopp?" Robin said slowly. She looked at him a bit, her face creasing into a suspicious frown. "Stranger!" she declared. "Get out of here, long-nose!"

"Hold on!" Usopp said, growing indignant. An idea popped into his head. "I'm the great Police Chief Usopp, Nico Robin!" he lied in a husky voice. "I'm here to investigate."

Robin frowned. Even at her age she had a mistrust for authority, but she also knew she'd get in more trouble than she'd ever been in if she defied the police. "Okay," she said. "My Aunt Roji won't wake up! I tried calling her, but she isn't moving…" she said, indicating the bed next to her.

Usopp raised an eyebrow. This was getting a little too far out for him, but his reflexive lying pushed him ahead. "Don't worry, Robin-chan," he said in his husky voice again, "your auntie is probably fine." He now took a good look at Nami's bed, occupied by a woman whose only discernable figure was her silver hair, given that the rest was entirely covered. He reached for her shoulder, "Ma'am, are you…" and touched it.

"What!" came a screech loud enough to wake Brook (reverse skeleton joke, yohoho). "Damnit honey, I keep telling you we're too old for that!" The woman rolled over and glared at him. "You're not him! Who the hell are you?"

The woman was old and wrinkled, with a head of silver hair, but Usopp easily identified her. "Nami?"

"Oh, look, it's a contender for the genius of the year award!" Nami responded viciously. "Of course I'm Nami!" she glared alternately at Robin. "And who are you, squirt?"

Robin ignored the rude question. "Usopp-san, this isn't my aunt."

"Usopp?" Nami gasped, then her eyes narrowed. "Nah. Usopp was taller than you. And you're damn right I'm not your aunt," she said, rounding on Robin again. "Nojiko's kids looked nothing like you. You look more like… oh, whatserface. It'll come to me!"

"Right…" Usopp said slowly. "Hey, I'm sorry I disturbed your sleep, and I'll leave you ladies alone now." With that, he stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him.

He stood outside for a time, shaking like a leaf. He had absolutely no clue what was going on, and it was hard to think as Nami and Robin began a rather loud argument after he left. Whatever it was, he and the other guys would figure it out. He grabbed a lantern and dashed down to the boys' room. "Everyone, it's horrible!" he roared as he dashed to the door and kicked it open. "Robin and Nami have…"

He saw six heads looking back at him from their bunks: a long white beard with a frayed straw-hat, a pudgy little face with moss-green hair, a wispy bald head with an eye patch, a staring reindeer with tiny fuzzy antlers, a metal nose and shock of wild purple hair, and an afro with a face obscured by an eye mask.

"What's going on here!" he roared, then collapsed in shock. "I'm dead," he said, then lost consciousness.

_Author's Note: The age-change i suppose is obvious, but there's something more at work here. What's wrong with our heroes? We'll find out. Though i may have started this prematurely, as my ability to write more quickly might become compromised for reasons both within (thanks DeviantArt) and outside of my control (thanks Washington Center Internships)_


	2. Responsibility

Chapter 2: Responsibility

Time Travel.

Well, not time travel exactly, but something that was close to it theoretically. The scientific explanations for devil-fruit powers remained fuzzy, though the mechanics behind them were often quite explicable. In Jewelry Bonney's case, her powers seemed to be biological in nature, that she could reach out and fast-forward or rewind the aging progression of either her own body or bodies near her. Her secret ability, however, hinted that her powers very well might be temporal in nature. Given enough time to use the ability, she could essentially transplant the past or future selves of an individual, such that they would possess not only bodies of a different age, but hold all the knowledge and experience that they should have (or shouldn't have) at a given age, as well as wear the clothes they had been wearing at the targeted instant.

Dr. Vegapunk had guessed that this ability had a temporal basis, and was vastly excited about the possibilities, but Bonney herself hadn't entirely realized it. She saw it for its tactical worth. She used it when she wanted to permanently incapacitate someone, because this ability was permanent, as far as she knew. If she wanted someone out of her way for good, she would use it, if she could find no other alternative. She thought it a cowardly ability at best, and preferred to deal with her problems in a more direct way. The last time she had applied it, tactically, was to dispose of a very troublesome Logia user whose abilities neither she nor her crew could surmount. She had sent him back to a point in his life before he had eaten his devil fruit, and dealt with him neatly.

Bonney was certain she had dealt with the straw-hats for good with this as well. She wasn't sure what had been done to each specific crew-member, as the ability was imprecise when used against multiple people, but she took comfort in the fact that there was no way a bunch of little kids and old people could bring that ship safely out of the dangerous seas they were in, and even if they did escape, they would be easy prey for any passing pirates or marines.

Usopp regained consciousness only slowly, suffering heavily from shock. His senses faded in and out like a badly tuned radio, allowing him to catch only snippets of the madness ensuing around him.

"Little dude fainted," came a gravelly voice.

"I heard when a woman faints you should loosen her clothing," came another voice, followed by a fit of coughing.

"That's not a girl," the gravelly voice returned, "even if his hair's kinda like it."

"Hey," responded a high-pitched male voice, "don't knock curly hair! It's the best hairdo ever!"

"What the hell are you thinking?" the second voice returned between coughs. "Afros went out a century ago, before I was even born!"

"Shouldn't we do something about him?" suggested a more sensible male voice.

"Don't interrupt your elders, Saul," the coughing voice responded.

"My name isn't…" the sensible voice started to reply, but was cut off.

"Man down!" another voice wheezed, "all hands on deck, prepare to be boarded! This man needs resuscitation!" Usopp recovered enough to open his eyes at that, but only long enough to see the man with the long white beard from earlier leaning over him. Beard-man took a deep breath, inflating his body to a vast size.

"Luffy…?" Usopp began. "What are you…?" But he was unable to continue, as he suddenly found himself in a bristly kiss, then was pumped full of air. He fainted again due to the stress on his chest.

"Hmm," Luffy said, looking at Usopp's prone form. "Ain't that how you're supposed to do it? Pump 'em full of air till they wake up?" Luffy was largely unchanged, wearing a similar red vest and blue pants, with the same straw-hat, much more frayed and damaged than the one Usopp knew, though his face was covered in a large white beard that grew down past his crotch.

"You have no idea what you're doing, old man," the sensible voice came in again. It belonged to a short little moss-haired boy, a young Roronoa Zoro. Zoro angrily shoved Luffy aside. "You're just gonna make it worse."

"I said don't interrupt your elders, Saul!" the other old man said, coughing again. The man had a wispy fringe of white hair, as well as an eye-patch over his left eye. Years had taken his hair, decades of chain-smoking left him with a bad cough, and a bad hip had rendered his combat style impossible, but he was still Sanji. "Shitty brat," he spat, then coughed anew.

"Why do you keep calling me Saul?" Zoro asked. "My name is Zoro, damnit!"

"Look," said the gravelly voice, "shouldn't we do something for the little bro?" With a squeaking sound, the bearer of the gravelly voice approached Usopp. From the waist up, he was mostly unchanged, a great bearish figure of a man with oversized forearms and a metal nose. Franky's skin would have sagged a little, but given his artificial bone structure, his skin merely tightened against his frame. Franky's hair was now purple, but the most noticeable change came below his waist. His legs were gone entirely, replaced by a wheelchair. Housed under the chair was a barrel of prune juice, Franky's new fuel of choice. A tube ran from the barrel around the chair and into his stomach, to keep him energized. Franky leaned over and picked up Usopp. "Prune juice'll fix him," Franky said confidently. "Prune juice fixes everything."

Again Usopp opened his eyes just in time to see Franky pull the tube from his stomach and pop it in his mouth. "Mmmf!" Usopp mumbled ineffectively as the horrid juice poured into his mouth, then he passed out again.

"Weird," Franky said. "That usually works."

Sanji narrowed his one visible eye. "Isn't there somethin' that you can use for people who've fainted?"

"I dunno," Zoro replied.

"Maybe he has an idea," Franky said, indicating the small reindeer that was slowly trotting towards Usopp. The reindeer sniffed Usopp's face tentatively, then licked it. Tony Tony Chopper, before he ate the Human-Human Fruit.

"That didn't work," Zoro observed. Sanji hit him.

"Shut up, Saul. The grown-ups are talking."

"I'm not Saul!" Zoro protested. Sanji ignored him.

"I'm sure there's somethin' you give to people who've fainted," Sanji repeated. "Somethin' salts?"

"The sea has salt," observed the high-pitched voice. The high-pitched voice belonged to a gangly boy, tall for his age, thin as a rail, and already sporting a thick, curly afro. He had been wearing an eye-mask when he had been awoken, but now wore a pair of sunglasses, even in the darkened room. "Is that what you mean?" he asked, picking his nose.

"Yeah!" Sanji replied eagerly. "Let's chuck him in the sea!"

"No I don't have to pee!" Luffy yelled. Sanji and Franky turned and finally noticed him. They knew that Luffy had gone quite deaf in his declining years, a side effect of the Gum-Gum fruit, though both knew how to deal with it. Franky grabbed Luffy's ear and stretched it taught. "He didn't say pee, he said sea!"

"I knew that," Luffy said dismissively. He finally noticed his surroundings. "Franky, Sanji? What are you doin' here?"

"Hell if I know," Sanji said. "Where are we anyway?"

"Duh," Luffy said, "this is the _Sunny_! But how did you get here? I don't remember bringing the _Sunny_ around to your restaurant…"

"Or Water 7," Franky added. "How did we get here?"

"You old farts didn't kidnap us?" Zoro asked. "I heard there are creepy old dudes who do stuff like that."

"Damnit, Saul," Sanji coughed, "you're asking for an ass-kicking."

"Bring it on, old man!" Zoro shouted, then took a fighting stance. Sanji raised his leg for a powerful kick, but about halfway up…

"My hip!" he shouted, then collapsed to the ground. Zoro stuck his tongue out at him.

"So how's everything going?" Franky asked Luffy, ignoring the conflict.

"Awesome!" Luffy said eagerly. "So many young pirates out there chasing their dreams these days. Hey," he said confidentially. "Check out what I can do!" He closed his eyes temporarily, showing intense concentration. After a few seconds, he opened them again. "Eh, that worked before," he wheezed, "oh well." None of them knew it, but at that moment, everyone in Marineford and Mariejoas awoke from their sleep in a cold sweat, terrified. "What were we doing?"

"We're gonna chuck this guy in the sea," Franky said. "The salts should revive him." For the first time, Luffy actually took a good look at Usopp.

"Hey, it's Usopp! Why's he on the floor like that?"

"Huh, it is Usopp," Franky realized. "He's lookin' supah for his age, isn't he?"

"Usopp?" Sanji said suspiciously. "I thought Usopp was taller than that…"

"You old men take forever to do anything," Zoro complained. He grabbed Usopp by his hair and started dragging him towards the door. "Just get him in the sea."

"You're gonna mess him up dragging him like that, Saul," Sanji said derisively. "You're too little for this."

"And you're too ugly!" Zoro said petulantly, tired of arguing against Sanji's insistence that his name was Saul.

"Shut up!" Franky roared, tired of their bickering. "I'll get it!" He grabbed Usopp easily with his big arms and slung him over his shoulder, then wheeled his way towards the door. The others followed, even Chopper. "Yup, this is definitely my _Sunny_," Franky said, an air of nostalgia in his voice.

"Hey, mister," Brook said, pulling on Sanji's sleeve.

"Yeah?" Sanji asked.

"You're bald."

"I'm not bald!" Sanji roared, "I'm distinguished!"

"Baldy, baldy!" Zoro intoned in a singsong voice.

"Damnit, Saul!" Sanji spat. "I'm not taking any more of this! I'll kick your ass back to the Red Line!"

"Let's see it!" Zoro responded. "I don't think you can!"

The two squared off, finally ready to come to blows, when they were interrupted.

"Shut up!" came a female screech from the upper deck. The door to the girls' room flew open and Nami stormed out, followed by Robin. Nami assessed the situation quicker, her navigator's sensibilities not dimmed with age. "Luffy! Give us some warning if you're bringing the _Thousand Sunny_!"

"No, I don't smell somethin' funny," Luffy wheezed.

Rather than repeat it all to Luffy, Franky answered. "He doesn't know how we got here, Nami. Or what these brats are doing here."

"Hey!" said Zoro, Robin, and Brook in unison, taking offense. Nami ignored them.

"What are you doin' with him?" she asked.

"We're gonna toss Usopp in the ocean," Franky replied.

"He's fainted, so the sea salts should wake him up," Brook added.

Robin rubbed her face in frustration. "That's smelling salts," she said. She had no idea, but it wasn't Ohara. Nobody here knew anything.

"Smelling salts, that was it!" Sanji said, snapping his fingers and coughing. "Thanks, little…" he hesitated. "Oh. Whatsername?"

"Robin," Robin replied.

"No no, that ain't it. It's Ku-somethin'."

"That sounds right," Nami added. Then Sanji finally noticed her.

"Nami-swaaan! I knew you'd be here!"

"You're gonna get a heart attack like that, you coot," Zoro said.

Nami laughed. "Here's a kid with class!"

"You always had a soft spot for Saul," Sanji said, torn between love for her and hate for his green-haired tormentor.

"That ain't Saul," Nami said. "Saul's older than that by now." She turned to Robin. "Which means you can't be whatserface."

"Does this ship have smelling salts?" Robin asked. "We should do something before your friends drown Usopp-san." She looked around curiously. "What ship is this, anyway?"

"What rock do you live under?" Nami spat, "this is the Thousand Sunny, the most famous ship in the world!"

"I don't live under a rock, I came from Ohara," Robin replied.

"Ohara?" Nami's eyes widened. "Robin?"

"That's what I said already."

"Quiet, dear," Nami said dismissively. "Sanji, take her to the infirmary and find the smelling salts."

"Yes, Nami-swan!" Sanji said smartly. He came up the steps and took Robin's hand. "Come along, Robin-chwan." Nami then proceeded to stop the others, who had gathered at the rail to watch Franky toss Usopp overboard.

"Alright, break it up!" she said. "Let someone with an ounce of sense handle this!"

"Who put you in charge, granny?" Zoro asked.

To the surprise of all, Nami laughed. "You got spunk, kid," she said. "But if anyone else were in charge, long-nose there would be dead by now."

"Why do you need the head of a cow?" Luffy asked. Nami smacked him soundly, sending him flying over the side, but Luffy stretched his arms to grab the rail and swung back aboard.

"You guys are all freaks," Zoro observed.

"I know, isn't it awesome?" Brook replied excitedly. "Look at him," he said, pointing at Franky, "he's wheelchairman!"

"She's a pretty sweet ride," Franky bragged. "You kids wanna know how she works?"

"Not at all!" Brook said matter-of-factly.

"Set him down," Nami interrupted, indicating Usopp. "They're back." Robin and Sanji approached, with Robin bearing a bottle.

"Smelling salts force people into a more awakened state when inhaled," Robin said. "He should be fine."

"Look at little miss know-it-all," Zoro said derisively. Robin glared, and Sanji hit him.

"That's no way to treat a lady, Saul."

"He's not Saul!" everyone yelled, and with that Usopp inhaled deeply, and awoke.

"Whoa," he said. "Hey guys, I had the craziest dream…" he opened his eyes, and saw the same faces as before. "Yah!" he screamed. "It was real!"

After calming himself, Usopp explained the situation, telling of everything that had happened since they had left Merman Island and had properly entered the New World, explaining the circumstances (what little he knew). He embellished nothing, except saying he had fearlessly kept the night watch. He prayed they would believe him, as he knew it was now his job to set this right. He almost, just barely, regretted a lifetime of lying. He finished the tale, and an awkward silence reigned. The expressions on the seniors were unreadable, and the children looked bored (except for Chopper, who had curled up for a nap in the grass).

"Well?" Luffy said, breaking the silence. "Let's go!"

"You believe me?" Usopp asked.

"Of course," Franky replied. "We're still nakama."

"It's a pain," Sanji added, "but otherwise I'm stuck on a boat with marimo again."

"But I don't even know where we're supposed to be going?"

"Don't worry," Nami encouraged. "I've still got some brains, and Robin's a right little prodigy. There can't be many people who can age-change like that, and we'll help ya find them."

"What's a kelp rind gem?" Luffy asked. Sanji and Nami both hit him.

"And what about you," Usopp asked the children. "Are you going to help?"

"That was a great story, pops," Zoro said sarcastically.

"But it could've used sky sharks and a three-headed zombie dog!" Brook said enthusiastically.

"How improbable," Robin said, reviled at Brook's imagination.

"But why should we listen to you?" Zoro asserted. They all stared at him aggressively. Children were drawn to weakness in adults like sharks to blood, ready to take full advantage of it. Usopp knew this, but also knew how to defuse it.

"If you're good, you get to sleep in hammocks," he said confidentially.

"Woohoo!" Zoro and Brook responded, jumping for joy, and even Robin smiled a little. Usopp yawned broadly. This affair had started at 2:00 AM and taken about two hours.

"Let's go to bed," he said.

"Woohoo! Bed!" the seniors cheered. The children moped, but were visibly tired as well.

Minutes later, they were all asleep. Sanji and Nami were up in the girls' room (Sanji's bad joints demanded a proper bed), while the others were down in the boys' room, including Robin. They had extra bunk/hammocks, given that Sanji was out, Franky was sleeping in his chair, and no-one quite knew what to do with Chopper. Usopp drifted off, bearing his new responsibility as he listened to the deep snoring of seniors, gentle breathing of children, and the silence of one little reindeer who was wondering why it had gotten so warm and where his herd had gone.

_Author's Note: Originally this update would have taken a very long time due to a collaboration story on DeviantArt, but my partner took ill, and my job is extraordinarily boring if I'm not writing something. More on-topic, everyone becomes jerks when their age changes, huh? Especially Zoro. There are lots of hints in this one about the future, some obvious, some not. One of them is painfully obvious if you think about it, though I hesitate to directly state it._


	3. Travel

Chapter 3: Travel

The beginning and end of life had a lot of things in common, Usopp learned. The young and old shared a lack of understanding, the young due to inexperience and the old due to their inability to keep up with the pace of progress. They shared other things, an intolerance for foods, and a need for care in some instances. One of their shared tendencies was especially grating for Usopp, however: little kids and old people both wake up extraordinarily early.

It had been a little after four when they had all gone to bed, and it was only closing in on 6:30 when the morning peace was shattered. "Gah!" Franky said suddenly.

Usopp rolled out of his bunk and hit the floor, grabbing up Kabuto. "What is it?" he asked, ready for action.

"I slept in!" Franky replied in dismay. "I'm not gonna be a lazy me this week!" He revved up his wheelchair and sped out of the room.

"Wait, Franky!" Usopp called after him. He scratched his head, it wasn't like Franky had anywhere to be.

"Oi," Zoro said, tapping Usopp on the back. "What's to eat around here?"

"Yes," added Brook, "I'm as famished as a sea king (even though I'm not a sea king, yahaha!)."

"Sanji! Breakfast!" Luffy roared, leaping out of bed in a manner surprising for his age. He turned to Zoro and Brook, grinning from ear to ear. "Race ya!"

"You're on!" they said, and dashed out. Robin also dropped out of bed.

"Am I really nakama to you people?" she asked.

"Yup," Usopp replied. "We're all a big family."  
"How do I put up with such idiots?" she asked.

_Does she include me in that?_ He wondered, but just said "You read a lot." They all went to the kitchen, except for Chopper, who Usopp let graze on the lawn. In the kitchen they saw Sanji in his element, cooking with the same gusto he had at breakfast the day before, though decades now separated them. Nami was there, too, sipping on orange juice and nibbling some toast. Franky was downing rice balls and complaining that the _Sunny_ had no prune juice, while two whole hams and some sausages sat in front of Luffy (for a very short time, at least). Usopp took rice balls as well, and was given some fried eggs, while three plates of French toast were set out for the children.

"I boiled some coffee," Sanji said as an offer.

"Ugh," Robin said, pulling a face, "coffee tastes like chalk."

"What are you tryin' to do!" Nami spat, "make me into some sort of wired junkie who flies off the handle about every little thing?"

"We certainly wouldn't want that," Usopp said. The children giggled.

"What did you say?" Nami barked.

"He said I have an old straw hat!" Luffy said. "Are you deaf?" Everyone laughed, even Nami. Aside from their appearances, it was a normal breakfast on the _Thousand Sunny. _

Eventually they drifted away, with Nami taking Robin up for a look at the library and Luffy and Franky taking Zoro and Brook down to the engine room to keep them occupied. Usopp kindly volunteered to clean up.

"No," Sanji said, with a surprising amount of venom in his voice. "I'll do it. I may have this damned cough," he said, coughing, "and a bit of the rheumatism, but I'm still a cook and a man. I'll clean my own mess!"

"Oi oi," Usopp said, shocked. "I was just offering to help. You've never refused help on the dishes before." Usually it was quite the opposite, with him berating his lazy nakama (at least the males) to help out once in a while.

"Yeah, you're right," Sanji sighed. "I just get frustrated about help because of my kids. They act like I'm so damn feeble. Feh."

"Your kids probably just care about you," Usopp said, grabbing some cups and putting them in the sink. He paused. "Wait, you have kids? With who?"

Sanji smiled with all the smugness of someone withholding valuable information. "You'd like to know that, huh?" he said, laughing. "You'd like to know who everyone gets together with. You know what Luffy would think about that."

Usopp remembered that little incident well, where he had tried asking Rayleigh if One Piece actually existed. Luffy's passionate declaration that if he knew, he'd abandon the journey had been an inspiring one in retrospect, though all Usopp had been thinking of was getting an edge on all the other pirates out there. Love would be the same way: it would grow on its own, and be far less interesting if forecast.

"Yeah," Usopp admitted, handing Sanji a plate to dry. "It'll be more fun if it's surprising." Though in the back of his head flashed a pale face and long blonde hair.

"Oh, it'll be surprising," Sanji chuckled. "Nobody saw any of that coming," he coughed again.

Usopp almost asked "who," reflexively, but kept it to himself. "But anyway," he said, redirecting the conversation, "your kids probably just care about you. Just like we help each other out. It's not patronizing, it's love."

"Ahh," Sanji sighed, then coughed. "You're right. I shouldn't get so pissed off at them. I'll get the rest," he said, indicating the much-diminished pile of dirty dishes. Usopp turned to leave, as he had a daunting day ahead of him. "I will tell you one thing," Sanji said, prompting Usopp to stop. "Do not let me buy any Oregano. Chopper's really allergic to it, but he doesn't know that yet. Things get tough when your doctor's too sick to help."

"Right," Usopp affirmed, and then departed. Next he sought Nami. Usopp had been thinking about this for some time, and knew that his first priority had to be getting the Sunny out of this misty belt, and only then could he begin to work on finding the culprit who could hopefully reverse it, if there was a culprit (and this wasn't some bizarre natural occurrence), if it could be reversed, and if the culprit didn't live in the belt. A lot of ifs, but it was either do this, or despair, and despair certainly wasn't the straw-hat way. This was the first step, and Nami's help was essential. Nami wouldn't forget her geography even if she had one foot in the grave, Usopp knew.

Nami was in the library, looking over Robin's shoulder as the little girl leafed through some immense historical tome. "Oi, Nami," he greeted her, hastily pulling her aside. "Is it okay for her to read history books? What if she learns about something that hasn't happened yet?" he whispered.

"Wouldn't she or Zoro or Brook have known this was coming?" Nami asked in response. "Will any of us remember this once it's over? This age-changing crap is confusing."

"I'll be fine," Robin cut in, having deployed an extra ear to hear them. "I'm very responsible."

"Okay," Usopp said, somewhat amused at child Robin's forthrightness. "Come on, Nami."

"And what do you need?" Nami said irately.

"I need you to make me a map," Usopp replied.

A look came over Nami's face as if he had promised her 2 million Beli cash. "Yay!" she cheered, practically hauling him off to the girls' room where she whipped out a piece of parchment. "What do you need?"

"Just a map of this area, this belt and the nearest islands."

"Yeah, but do you need currents, depth projections, weather patterns, marked shipping lanes, what?" she asked excitedly.

"Just a map," Usopp said, a little overwhelmed.

"Right," said Nami, a little disappointed. He watched her take up quill and ink and work quickly. She scratched out a large network of lines, an exact chart of the intricate reefs that crisscrossed the misty belt, then penned in an island to the north of the belt, the marine base they had avoided, as well as one west southwest. "Here's where we're going," Nami said, pointing to the next island. "Autumn island, and a safe place from the marines, though as a pirate haven, it might not be too safe for us as we are. But any pirates traveling through are bound to stop there, and we can look for someone who matches the description. We were going there anyway," she added, setting the Log Pose on top of the misty belt on the map, showing that it pointed straight towards the island on the map, too.

"Awesome," Usopp said.

"Yeah," Nami said, a faraway look in her eyes. "I never had more fun in my life than when I plotted our journey through the New World. Fulfilled most of my dream in the process."

"Mm," Usopp nodded. He had pondered asking her to draw more maps to help them out further, since she clearly enjoyed it, but now realized he was making the same mistake as before. "Well, thanks," he added, and turned to leave.

"Nah," Nami said. "I should be thanking you. You're getting us out of this mess. Aside from me, you're probably the best one for the job."

"Really?" asked Usopp.

"Of course," Nami replied. "Maybe Robin, but she wouldn't have been any good with the kids. And let's see…" Nami said, ticking it off on her fingers. "Luffy would've tried to swim for help or something, Zoro'd be stuck in here forever, Franky would've tried a blind jump out, Brook's practically a child himself, Chopper would've freaked out completely, and Sanji would've hanged himself because I'm old and wrinkled and Robin's a loli," she laughed at the last remark.

"You're right," Usopp said, filled with a new confidence. "Now trouble not, madam," he said in a noble voice. "For the great Captain Usopp will lead you to your youth." He strutted out the door.

"What have I done?" Nami said, rubbing her palm to her face.

Thus Usopp set the _Sunny's_ course, after looking around to get their exact bearings. He took the helm, he hadn't had much experience at the helm, but it wasn't hard for the sniper to master. He had the children help by keeping watch at bow, port, and starboard, since keen eyes were needed to catch reefs through the mist, something the seniors weren't up to. They set out in midmorning and passed most of the day that way, with Zoro, Brook, and Robin calling out sightings and Usopp checking those sightings against the map and adjusting course accordingly. Sanji brought out lunch and they ate it, but Usopp remained largely undisturbed, until mid-afternoon, anyway, when a moaning sound came up from the lawn.

"Bored, Borrrred!"

"I know it's boring, Brook," Usopp said from the helm, "but we have to do it."

"Wasn't me," came Brook's voice.

"Bored!" came the call again. Usopp turned: it was Luffy. Usopp frowned, he didn't have the space to deal with this, but he hadn't thought himself capable of any of this before, so he gave it a whirl.

"Hold on, Luffy," he said. He grabbed a small barrel and set it in front of the helm. "Zoro, take the helm. Robin, read off the map."

"I would make a better choice for the helm, Usopp-san," Robin said respectfully.

"He said I could do it!" Zoro yelled. Robin growled, and Zoro stuck his tongue out at her triumphantly. Usopp swooped in to defuse the conflict, pulling Robin aside.

"You're a better reader than he is," he said confidentially, "and he's an idiot at following directions." Robin giggled and went to the map while Zoro took the helm. "Brook, I'm going to need you to call all readings for me," he added.

"Yes sir, Captain Usopp!" Brook said smartly.

_Captain Usopp_, Usopp thought. _Has a ring to it_. "Alright, Luffy," he said, rounding on his aged Captain. "What's so boring?"

"Snoring?" Luffy asked, confused. "Who's snoring?" Usopp grabbed his ear and stretched it out.

"I said boring!" he yelled again, "what's so boring?"

"Alright, alright, no need to yell," Luffy said. "I'm not deaf."

"You are deaf," Usopp said.

"I am?" Luffy asked. "Nobody's ever told me."

"They probably did, but you couldn't hear them," Usopp replied.

"Huh," Luffy said. "But I'm bored because Franky kicked me out of the engine room and Sanji kicked me out of the kitchen. There's nothing to dooooooo!" he whined.

_Aside from going deaf, he hasn't changed at all…_ Usopp thought. "Couldn't you find something to do with…" he was about to suggest Chopper, but remembered that baby Chopper was rather boring himself. The other old people would just be more annoyed by Luffy, and he needed the kids' help for now. Actually, now that he thought of it… "Where is Chopper?"

"The little reindeer?" Brook said. "Haven't seen him all day."

_Damn._ Usopp thought. Hopefully the little guy hadn't gone over the side or something. But this problem proved fortuitous, as it could provide Luffy with something to do. "We should go find Chopper," he said.

"Why would we need a bottle stopper?" Luffy asked. Usopp cringed. These deafness inspired puns were getting really old really quick. He grabbed Luffy's ear again and stretched it. "Go find Chopper! Do you want to help me find Chopper?"

"Sure," Luffy said, a little resentfully. "You know you don't have to yell." Usopp was uncertain whether to laugh or howl in fury. They proceeded to scour the ship for Chopper, not a hard task given that many areas were occupied: kitchen, engine room, girls' room, and deck. They boys' room and bathroom were clear, then they checked the infirmary, library, and Usopp's workshop. In the workshop they found him: a frightened pair of eyes shining back in the half-lit room, set above a blue nose, but Chopper bolted as soon as they opened the door, dodging between Usopp's and Luffy's legs. "Damn," Usopp cursed. "Little guy's too scared of us." They watched the little reindeer dash down the hall.

"He's headed for the storage room," Luffy observed, thrilled to have something to do.

"Right," Usopp said. "I'll go in and flush him out, then you grab him with your stretchy arms."

"Yosh," Luffy replied. "Jab the skletchylarms. What's a skletchylarm?"

Usopp fought back a sudden urge to strangle his old Captain. Then he had an idea. He grabbed Luffy's ear. "Hold on," and then retreated into his workshop. He returned soon with a small metal washer and a clothespin. He stood behind Luffy and seized both ears, stretching them until they met at the back of his head, then squeezed the ends of the ears through the washer, and clipped the clothespin over the whole affair. "There," he said upon completion, "can you hear me?"

"Sure," Luffy said.

Usopp smiled. That would stop those damned deaf-induced puns. "I'll go in and flush him out, then you grab him with your stretch arms," he repeated.

"Yosh," Luffy nodded. He looked ridiculous with his ears stretched back like a headband through his mane of frizzled white hair, but he could hear.

Usopp plunged into the dark of the ship's storage hold, mostly occupied by Franky's barrels of cola. He trod cautiously between the rows of barrels, fearing that he might tread on the little reindeer. Finally he spied him and made an effort to grab him, but Chopper predictably dashed for the open door.

"Gotcha!" Luffy said as his arms lashed out and seized Chopper. The reindeer squirmed, but Luffy held him firm.

"Good job," Usopp said.

"Nah, it was fun," Luffy replied. They went up the stairs together. "You havin' fun as Captain?" Luffy asked.

"I don't know how you did it," Usopp answered. "Everyone's so different, it's a wonder we even became nakama."

"Eh, they're more similar than you think," Luffy replied. "It's about conviction. Dreamers with conviction share a kinship, even if their dreams have nothing to do with one another, their conviction binds them."

Usopp arched an eyebrow and looked sidelong at his old Captain. In his tone and facial expression, he caught a different man, a pirate king, benevolent and wise. He was struck with awe in that moment.

"Oi, do you think Chopper lost his real nose and replaced it with a big blueberry?" Luffy asked seriously.

_That didn't last long._ He was about to reply when the ship lurched heavily with a sickening crunch. Usopp fell full-on to the stairs and Chopper tried to break free, but Luffy secured him.

"See what you've done?" came a shout from above.

"What I've done?" came another. "You're giving directions nobody would understand!"

The ship now sat at an odd angle, making the climb up the stairs difficult, but Usopp emerged on deck all the same. Another uphill climb brought him to the helm, where Zoro and Robin argued fiercely.

"I said 90º hard starboard!" Robin said. "What kind of dimwit wouldn't understand that?"

"Not my fault I don't understand your fancy-pants words, nerd princess," Zoro spat.

That last remark clearly stung Robin pretty hard, as she began to tear up. "Whoa whoa, what's going on?" Usopp said, swooping in to defuse the conflict again.

Robin sniffled and spoke. "He ignored my directions and crashed the ship into a reef."

"Not my fault," Zoro said resolutely. "She's shouting nonsense! 90º? How does temperature have anything to do with boat-driving?"

"What kind of reef?" Usopp asked.

"A huge crescent-shaped one!" Brook put in. "I saw it!"

Usopp frowned, looking at the map. A large crescent reef formed one of the edges of the misty belt. They were almost out, but stuck.

"What happened?" Franky asked as he emerged on deck.

"We ran aground," Usopp said. "Stuck on a reef."

"Ahh," Franky said nonchalantly, "We'll just blast off with a Coup de Burst!"

Usopp thought for a moment, then shook his head. "According to Nami's map, this reef's about 1 kilometer from the end of the mist. Coup de Burst would put us out in the open, and we should keep under cover in here."

"You're right," Franky said after checking the map. "So what do we do?"

Any day other than today, it would have been an easy thing. Gear Third, or some crazy stunt from the cook or swordsman would easily push the ship off. But who knew what Gear Third would do to Luffy's systems now, Sanji had become brittle, and the waist-high Zoro was interested in nothing than glaring at his erstwhile foe. Franky's metal body might have endured the ravages of the years better, however. "Could you do it?" he asked.

Franky looked uncertain. "I'm probably still strong enough," he said uncertainly, "but I'm not sure my body could take it. You followin' me?"

"Yeah," the fellow engineer said, "you mean you've got the physical strength, but your body may not be structurally stable enough to support the Thousand Sunny."

"Right," Franky said. "Maybe we could make something to transfer my strength?"

_Transferring strength. Transferring energy. Kinetic energy._ Usopp snapped his fingers, dashing off to his workshop again. He returned quickly with his impact dial.

"Nope," Franky said, looking at the shell in his hands. "I don't remember what this is."

"Impact Dial," Usopp said.

"Hey, right," Franky said, suddenly remembering. "It absorbs any applied force to discharge it later."

"Enough force to pop the Sunny off the reef," Usopp finished. "Just hit it as hard as you can a few times." He picked up the barrel from in front of the helm and placed it in front of Franky, setting the dial on top. Franky cracked his knuckles in anticipation.

"Franky Boxing!" he said, then pummeled the impact dial with gusto. His blows, undiminished with the decades, were more than enough to destroy the barrel, but instead the impact dial absorbed the force unscathed.

"Whoa, hold up," Usopp interjected. "We don't need that much."

"Sorry," Franky apologized sheepishly "I'm an energetic me this week."

"Mm," Usopp nodded, frowning, "but now the recoil will be too strong for any of us to handle, especially without Chopper to patch us up." He looked at the dial closely, lost in thought, then heard a rapid hammering sound.

"Who said it had to be a person?" Franky asked. In the space of a moment, he had crafted a small, catapult-like device, about as tall as Usopp himself. Usopp caught the children staring in awe.

"How did you…" he started to ask, "never mind, this'll do."

"I forgot how much fun it was working with you, Usopp-bro," Franky said. "Between your ideas and my engineering ability, we made some supah stuff." Franky paused. "Made. Make. Will make? Guh, this age-change stuff is confusing," he said, echoing Nami.

"Thanks," Usopp said. Usopp loaded the impact dial into the arm of the device and Franky lowered it down on the reef where it poked up out of the water. Usopp then went down with it, wound up the spring-loaded device, then let it fly and stepped well back. The arm snapped up, slapping the dial against the _Sunny's_ hull. It hit with a deafening bang, the recoil utterly destroying the device, but the hull was undamaged, the ship practically leaping back into open waters.

With that, the day ended. They stopped where they were, close enough to the end of the misty belt where they could still be safe from the outside world, but ready to pounce on the next island. They ate dinner, and then Usopp discovered the plus side to children and seniors' shared tendency to wake up early: after washing dishes, Sanji declared it was time for bed, and like magic, the others seemed to follow suit. Finally left to himself, Usopp reflected on that day. Aside from their appearances, it had been a normal day on the _Thousand Sunny._

_Author's Note: Wow, this chapter got extraordinarily long, didn't it? Sorry about that. The next one will have Usopp getting some quality time with the children, and will hopefully be shorter._


	4. Kid Detectives

Chapter 4: Kid Detectives

"Bear to starboard around the island," Nami said. "There'll be a small cove in back where we can stop."

"Right," Usopp nodded. They had gotten an earlier start today, setting sail only as Sanji just started breakfast. Now it was just past 9:00 and they had made it to their destination. It was, as Nami said before, an autumn island, roughly ovoid with a hill in the middle. One side of the island was dominated by a port-town that sprawled along the coast, but only extended three or so blocks inland. The hill was covered in a rainbow of trees, sliding from red, orange, yellow, a little enduring green, and brown. The _Thousand Sunny_ sailed around, finding in back a little cove, mostly hidden from view, where a waterfall poured down from the hill above. Here they could dock safely away from the many pirates in their weakened condition. It was on the opposite coast from the port, but the island was only two kilometers wide. Once they had dropped anchor, Usopp gathered the crew.

"Nami, Luffy, and Zoro are going into town to get supplies and hear what they can hear," he said. He had decided they should go since they looked the least like their wanted posters. Though the island was safe from marines, pirates and bounty hunters were quite predatory. Nami's distinctive red hair was now silver, Luffy's face obscured with his bristly white beard (and the ears that Usopp had tied back only helped alter his appearance), and Zoro's battle-hardened visage was now soft and pudgy. He would have suggested Sanji, now bald and with an eye-patch, but Nami intimated that Sanji had only gotten more temperamental about his hilarious wanted poster over the years. "The rest of us have to start looking through our records, Nami's newspapers, and our library, to see if there's any clue about who did this. Give anything that looks important to Robin." Even at her age, Robin had the right researcher's mentality for the job.

"Have fun with your books, nerd princess," Zoro mocked.

"Shut up, stinky marimo!" Robin replied, crossing her arms. Two hands sprouted out of Zoro's shoulders and clamped over his mouth.

Zoro swatted the hands away. "Get your freak hands off me, monster!" he shouted.

That struck home as well. Tears welled into Robin's eyes and she dashed off. Zoro stuck his tongue out at her retreating form. Nami smacked his head. "Ow, what did I do?"

"You're acting like a little shit, that's what," Sanji muttered.

"You made her cry!" Nami snarled. "Go apologize!"

"It's okay," Usopp interjected. "I'm sure he didn't mean it." Usopp knew firsthand how quickly these little in-crew disputes could spiral out of control. It was easier to let Zoro go and then console Robin instead of sort it out now, since he needed everyone working together for now, though he was shocked that Zoro, their pillar of stability, could have ever acted like that. Usopp noted that Luffy, who had a very low tolerance for bullying, remained silent, even expressionless.

"Whatever," Nami said. "Come on, brat," she said, grabbing Zoro's ear and tugging him along. "But you damn well better behave." Zoro protested, but was dragged along, and Luffy followed. They disembarked and climbed up to the waterfall, where a pathway led to the town.

With Nami, Luffy, and Zoro departed and Robin fled, Usopp was left with the others on deck. Sanji looked furious, livid over Zoro's actions, while the others looked awkward, shifting around uncertainly. Usopp was looking for the right words to break the tension when it was suddenly broken by Chopper, oddly enough. The little reindeer suddenly ambled into their midst, his blue nose to the grass as if he were searching for something. Eventually he stopped, sniffing one spot intently, then licked it.

"Chopper?" Usopp asked, "what do you smell?" Of course the reindeer did not respond, as he was unable to. The crew really took Chopper's humanity for granted, given that his personality, ability to speak, even his passion for medicine were all entirely predicated on the Human Human Fruit. Of their four devil fruit users, Chopper was the most defined by his.

But even as a simple reindeer, Chopper proved useful. "What do you think he smells?" Brook asked.

"Must be some kinda food," Franky ventured, "he seems to like licking it."

"If it's food, I'll know," Sanji said darkly, still a little angry. Sanji got down on all fours, an agonizingly slow process for a man with bad joints, but eventually he got his nose to the spot Chopper had licked. "Ham," he said.

"Does that mean anything?" Franky asked.

"No," Usopp said after thinking a bit, "we haven't had any ham in a while."

"I'll check," Sanji said, and stood. He led them to the kitchen where he pulled out a notebook. "I've kept a log of all recipes used so far, as well as any supplies we've taken on." Usopp and the others looked over his shoulder to see. Days and dates were listed next to a plethora of recipes, some which had little hearts next to them, some shaded purple, some shaded orange. Sanji ticked off the most recent one. "Hmm… fish, fish, fish, fish… ooh, Robin-chwan liked this one," he coughed, "fish, fish, fish."

He was selling himself short, Usopp thought. All of those dishes had been based on fish, but all had been radically different.

"Here's why," Sanji said, "we got a lot of fish back at Merman Island."

Usopp remembered that well. He had seen fish down there stranger than the scope of his own tall tales. He had sketched some of them for later as excellent lying material. "So the ham didn't come from us?"

"Pretty sure," Sanji replied.

"Sounds like something Luffy would do," Usopp added. "Take a ham when going after pirates. Whoever it was is a real glutton."

"Chopper-bro pulled through for us, huh?" Franky said, slapping the reindeer on the back and causing him to dart to the other end of the kitchen.

"Yeah," Sanji added. "He deserves a treat." He pulled out a jar of candy, one that he kept well-hidden from Chopper's obsession, and tossed a few on the floor. The previously-skittish Chopper darted out to eagerly feed on the sweets. That at least was something that wasn't a tendency of the Human Human Fruit.

"I better go cheer Robin up so we can get started researching," he said.

Sanji muttered something, though Usopp caught nothing but "shitty" in there somewhere. What Zoro had done had really bothered him.

It was Franky who suppressed Sanji's wrath. "Hey, curly-cook," he said with a gleam in his eye. "Let's go find Luffy's diary."

"Luffy has a diary?" Usopp asked. Sanji smiled, then laughed.

"Damn, that was funny," he said. "Sure."

"A boy with a diary?" Brook asked. "I have to see this!"

"Whoa, hold on," Usopp said. "We need research, research!"

"This'll be research too," Franky assured. "Maybe Luffy wrote down somethin' that ain't in that grey head of his anymore."

"Plus this'll be fun!" Brook added.

"Fine," Usopp relented, and they dashed off eagerly. Usopp's smile from the revelation of the existence of Luffy's diary faded into a frown as he thought about Robin. He didn't know where she had gone to on the Sunny, but he had a good guess.

He indeed found Robin in the library, curled up in an armchair. She wasn't crying, but it looked as though she had been. "Oi, Robin," he greeted her.

Robin sniffled, "what?"

"Are you okay?"

"No!" she shouted. "Stupid Zoro called me a freak and a," tears welled into her eyes again, "a monster!" She resumed crying.

"There there," Usopp soothed, patting her head. "Don't cry, Zoro's just…" he paused, as he was going to say "mean," but Zoro wasn't mean, at least not the Zoro he knew. "…stupid," he finished, that at least was a little true. "Boys his age say stupid things like that."

"But everyone calls me that on Ohara," Robin sobbed, "even girls and men and women. Only the scholars are nice to me."

There was a hint as to Robin's age. Usopp had wondered whether this was the 79 million bounty Nico Robin or not. "You live on Ohara now?"

"That's where I've lived all my life," Robin said. "I hate it there, they all call me a monster," she started crying again.

"You're not a monster," he said. Then he had an idea, "and I can prove it." He left her for a moment and returned shortly with a photo album. Once they had reunited and made it safely to Merman Island, Jinbei had thrown them a huge party. Lots of photos had been taken, and Luffy had demanded that those photos be compiled into an album. Usopp sat down on the chair next to her and opened it, flipping through the pages. "Here, see?" he said, indicating a group photo, "that's you."

"Really?" Robin said. It was a smiling Nico Robin, surrounded by eight loving friends as they all toasted.

"Yeah," Usopp flipped a few pages, finding a set focused on Robin, a number of solo shots as well as her with one or two other nakama. "You're not a monster."

"Wow," Robin exclaimed. "I'm pretty!" She flipped over to another page. "Eww!" she said suddenly, "Why am I with Zoro in this one?"

"Like I said, boys say stupid things at his age," Usopp said. "Zoro rescues all of us at one point or another, you on a couple of occasions. He grows up to be a great man, just like you grow up to be a great woman," Usopp motioned around the room. "Most of these books are yours, and you've read almost everything else. You're the smartest person we know."

"Thanks, Usopp-san," Robin said, wiping away her tears. "Now what did you want me to look through?"

"Ah," Usopp replied, ready to get down to business. He had Robin leaf through newspapers first, being the most likely source of information on someone with such a unique power. He brought the recent volumes, which the paper bird had continued to deliver to the Sunny while they had been away. Given the recent tumultuous events, these volumes were often thick, but Robin was adept at sifting through information. About an hour in, she called his attention.

"Look at this." She showed him a newspaper from roughly six weeks ago, with an article entitled "Chaos in Sabaody as Rookie Pirates Wreak Havoc," a multipage spread. "It's this picture that got my attention," Robin added, pointing to a photo of little boys in oversized Marine uniforms with a group of old men in similar uniforms. "The only difference is it doesn't look like their clothes changed with their age, but ours did."

"Who is it?"

"Jewelry Bonney."

"Did it mention if she was a glutton?" Usopp asked, trying to tie this together with the hint of mystery ham.

"Yes, actually," Robin replied. "Reports of a restaurateur who claimed that Ms. Bonney ruined his business by cleaning him out."

"So it has to be her," Usopp affirmed. "It's extremely unlikely that there are two age-changers out there, it's next to impossible that there are two gluttonous age-changers. Excellent work," he finished, then went off for the wanted posters. Since the reunion, Sanji had subscribed to the Marine Wanted Poster service, hoping against hope that one day a new poster of him would arrive. Nami had almost killed him over the extra expenses, but decided it was worth it, since it allowed them to know who was who. It paid off now, as Usopp quickly found her. 140,000,000, her pink-haired visage annoyed as she ate some pizza.

"With a bounty that high, she'll be easy to find," Robin said.

"Yes, b-b-but that means she's really p-p-powerful…" Usopp stammered, his cowardice taking hold again.

"I'm sure you can do it, Usopp-san," Robin said, smiling.

"Thanks." It was lunchtime then, so they went to eat with the others. Sanji, Franky, and Brook kept giggling like little girls as they stumbled upon odd bits and pieces of Luffy's diary, but they didn't read it out loud. Usopp was extremely curious, but they told him he wasn't meant to even know about its existence yet, and certainly not its contents. Aside from their teasing, they were all enjoying themselves thoroughly when…

"Ow, what did I do?" came Zoro's voice on deck.

"What didn't you do?" Nami replied scathingly. "You act like a total meathead moron and draw attention to us! You're lucky this is a pirate island with no laws, or we'd be screwed!"

"What happened?" Usopp said as he and the others emerged on deck. There they saw Luffy, Nami, and Zoro. Luffy had an arm coiled around Zoro, who struggled.

"This nimrod got lost," Nami explained, "wandered into a dojo, then stole like 15 wooden swords. When the instructor tried to stop him, he beat him up!"

"And what's wrong with that?" Zoro protested. "That guy was weak. Weaklings get their asses kicked. Besides, I needed some bouken."

Usopp looked around at the others. The situation wasn't good: everyone was glaring at Zoro with glances varying from embarrassment to distaste to outright anger, except for Luffy, who again was strangely expressionless. He didn't need this conflict on top of everything else he had to deal with. He pondered Zoro for a moment too, then had an idea. "Let him go," he said, "I'll deal with him."

Zoro looked somewhat relieved, glad to be saved from the wrath of the others by their erstwhile Captain. Luffy let him go, and Zoro followed him. Usopp took him back up to the library where he retrieved the photo album, then took him down to the boys' room. If it had helped Robin, Usopp reasoned, then perhaps revelations of the future would help Zoro out too. Usopp had done some thinking about potential time paradoxes last night, and determined that there was no way Zoro, Robin, or Brook would remember any of this, because then they would have remembered it in the first place, known it was going to happen, and prevented it from happening (but then of course they wouldn't remember it, which would cause it to happen). They went down to the boys' room and sat down on the couch.

"What's their problem?" Zoro grumbled. "I'm just knockin' over dojos like I always do."

"They're mad because you're acting differently than we know you," Usopp explained. "We have higher expectations because you've been such a great friend to us."

"Great?" Zoro asked.

"Yeah," Usopp said with a fresh confidence, thinking he was getting through to him. "You're gonna be a great and noble swordsman one day, someone we all rely on. Look," he said, opening the photo album and flipping to a section focused on Zoro. "You invent your own style of swordsmanship: Santoryuu." He indicated a few photos of Zoro with all his swords drawn. "You're really dedicated, you train all the time, and you've earned a lot," he added. "See how much you're worth?" he said, pointing to Zoro's wanted poster. Zoro stopped and stared at his poster for a time. _It's working,_ Usopp thought.

Zoro smiled, looking at his wanted poster. "And look at the swords you own!" Usopp said, popping open Zoro's locker. Zoro took out his own swords slowly, looking them over carefully.

"Hey, Usopp," Zoro said slowly. "When we're all back to normal…"

"Yes?" Usopp encouraged.

"You tell the older me that he should go and cry like the wussy little girl he is. Three swords?" Zoro snorted, "fft, he might as well be using one like all the other chumps out there! A man uses at least 10."

For a second Usopp stood dumbfounded. Kid Zoro was a complete and total jerk. Usopp decided to level with him. "Look," he said. "Just try and be good until we're all normal again. I'm gonna need everyone's cooperation to beat Jewelry Bonney."

"Who?"

"Her," Usopp said, pulling out Bonney's wanted poster. "She's the one who did this to us."

"Her?" Zoro replied. "I saw her when I was looking for that dojo. She and some other people were leaving this pizza restaurant, and the chef or someone was yelling at her about how she ate all his food."

"Are you sure?" Usopp said. This was an incredible turn of luck.

"I sure as hell hope there aren't two women with ugly pink hair like that," Zoro said scornfully. "She seemed mean too. She was about to take a swing at the chef, but the people with her told her to wait until dinner."

"You found her? Where was the restaurant?" Usopp asked excitedly.

"What do I look like, a map?" Zoro responded, annoyed. "All I know was it was near that sissy little dojo. I'll help you out," he added, "just because I wanna get back to knockin' over dojos. Last thing I remember before this, I was headed off to a dojo where their toughest fighter is a girl." Zoro chuckled, "a girl, can you believe that?"

"As long as you promise to behave," Usopp warned. "That means no wandering off, and no name-calling."

"Yeah yeah," Zoro replied nonchalantly. "Whatever gets me outta here quicker."

So Usopp returned to the deck again, where the others were still gathered. He put together what Chopper had discovered, what Robin had read, and what Zoro had seen, and told them.

"So she's a glutton who's hungry for pizza?" Sanji asked. Usopp nodded. "But how do we use that against her?"

"That's the problem," Usopp said. "Even if we were in a position to just beat her up, that wouldn't be an option. We need some sort of coercion to force her to undo what she did to us."

"Karl says you should hold the pizza hostage!" Brook suddenly declared. "Karl," he then said, shocked, "that's a very sinister thing to suggest!"

Everyone looked askance at Brook, except for Luffy who still seemed lost in thought. The tall, gangly kid with the sunglasses and afro had just gotten a notch weirder. "Karl?" Usopp finally asked, breaking the silence. "Who's that?"

"You can't see him either?" Brook asked, disappointed. "Nobody can see Karl but me, though I was wondering if you could. His full name is Pipenellershetz Karl, but he doesn't like me to use that, he thinks his last name is embarrassing."

"Is he your imaginary friend?" Nami asked.

"Yahaha!" Brook laughed. "No! He's totally real, just that most people can't see him. He's a big tough pirate with a peg-leg and eye-patch, plus a hooked sword and bazooka! He acts mean and scary, but he's secretly really kind (he once saved a family of bunnies from a ferret) yahaha!" It actually wasn't so strange to Usopp. They had known nothing about Brook's youth. The youngest age he had ever talked about was when he first met Laboon, but it really wasn't that far out to see that child Brook had had a pirate imaginary friend.

"But anyway, he said we should take the pizza hostage?" Usopp asked, not wanting to throw away any idea, no matter how strange.

"Yes. I think it's a nasty, evil idea, but Karl says that if she really loves pizza, she'll do anything to get it back, even healing us, if we threaten to destroy it."

"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard, and I've been around Luffy most of my life!" Nami spat. "How in the hell do you take food hostage?" Robin nodded emphatically in agreement with her sentiment.

"Now now," Sanji put in, actually contradicting Nami. "It's not a bad idea. I've withheld food to make people do things before. We just have to be a little more…" he coughed, "forceful."

"But the lady has a point," Franky put in, "how exactly do we hold food hostage?"

The conversation devolved into a glorious argument as they rolled the idea back and forth, but Usopp remained silent. The wheels in his brain started turning faster and faster, then it all fell into place.

"Ha ha ha!" he laughed. "I've got it!"

_Author's Note: Can Child Zoro be redeemed, and how exactly does one hold pizza hostage? Well, we're all gonna have to wait on that one, aren't we? (sinister laugh). Though seriously, I'll try to have the conclusion done quickly._


	5. The Plan

Chapter 5: The Plan

When he put on the mask, he was a different man. A psychologist would call it a bad thing, that he used the mask when he needed to do things far too bold for him to do normally, but then again all of the straw-hats could pose endless hours of fun, fascination, and frustration for any psychologist. He justified it in this case because the mask was how the world knew him: it was Sogeking who was wanted by the Marines, not Usopp, and for now he needed rumor to spread around the island that one of the straw-hats was here. So Usopp donned the mask as he set out with the others to enact his plan.

The first phase was quite simple: acquire all the pizza on this autumn island. That meant a bit more than acquiring all the pizza that was made, but buying out all the pizza ingredients at restaurants in their entirety. Under normal circumstances, they could simply have robbed all the sites by force, but aside from that being morally questionable, they were unable to anyway. Fortunately for Usopp, Nami had had the treasure from all the way back at Thriller Bark converted into cash back at Merman Island, so they had vast cash reserves.

It wasn't the safest idea out there, but he had sent everyone except Chopper and Nami with large amounts of cash to seek out any restaurant that sold pizza, to demand that they ship all their supplies to the _Sunny_. Everyone was instructed to keep putting money on the table until the offer was irresistible. Usopp had chosen Nami to remain behind because someone had to, and Nami because she would find this mission rather painful.

They walked swiftly along the path that led from the cove where the _Sunny_ was hid into town, then dispersed. Usopp decided to follow Luffy, curious about something. "Oi, Luffy," he said, poking him on the shoulder.

"Wha? Sogeking?" Luffy said incredulously. "It's been years! How come I haven't seen you in forever? How did you get here? How did you recognize me?" he asked it all very fast.

Usopp almost brought his hand to his face in frustration, but felt that it would be out of character for Sogeking to do such a thing. "Well, Luffy," he said in Sogeking's deeper voice, "Usopp-san called me and told me how much trouble you were in, so I came to help out. I'll make sure Bonney is defeated!"

"Woohoo!" Luffy shouted in a tone belying his great age. "Nothing's going to stop us with the king of snipers on our side! But you know about the plan, right?"

"Of course," Usopp said confidently. Then he remembered why he had followed Luffy initially. "Hey, Luffy, Usopp wanted me to ask you a question."

"Sure!" Luffy said, smiling. "I'm sure you got a lot of questions after bein' away for so long."

"Why have you been so calm about Zoro-san's antics?"

With that, Luffy's face fell from a smile, back into the same expressionless blank that it had worn when confronted by the rogue Zoro. For a time, his face held that way as they continued to walk in silence, then he spoke. "A man's past is his own thing," he said solemnly. "Zoro's saying and doing horrible things, but this isn't him. He didn't have a choice in having his past self come out like this, and I'm not going to condemn him for it."

"Mm," Usopp hummed, nodding sagely. Some of the straw hats had done rather reprehensible things in their past, with Robin being the best example, though Franky and Nami had smudges on their pasts as well. If Zoro had once been a bully, it should definitely be forgivable, if what Nami, Franky, and Robin had done was forgivable. They were nakama now, that was the important thing.

"Still," Luffy added, cheering up a little. "I'd hate to run into Zoro while he's out looking for pizza! That guy's like a wolf even as a little kid!"

Usopp pondered that statement a moment, then it hit him: Zoro, out looking for pizza. Zoro. Looking. The flaw in his plan was blindingly apparent, and Sogeking did bring his palm to his mask in frustration. "Excuse me, Luffy-kun, I have to go tend to something," he said, then quickly turned onto another street and hurried off.

"Great seein' you again, Sogeking!" Luffy waved. "Say hi to Usopp for me!"

Usopp dashed off. Zoro could be anywhere, and would in all likelihood be lost even in that narrow city forever if something wasn't done. Then there was the added danger: if the incredibly inconsiderate child Zoro managed to provoke some pirates or bounty hunters enough, they might really hurt him, or even start to hunt down the other straw-hats. Wandering about free, he was like a ticking time bomb, and had to be disabled quickly. Usopp turned aside onto another street, this one mostly residential, where the shopkeepers and other workers that catered to the pirates dwelt. Up ahead he saw Robin walking along, holding a tome that was comically large for her 7-year-old body. The tome served a twofold purpose: she could read it as she walked, and it was large enough to hide a significant cache of money. He was about to call for her aid when a number of figures emerged from an alley closer to Robin, approaching her. Usopp was too far away to properly hear them, but he could get a general idea of what was going on.

Robin walked the streets of the town, casually flipping through a volume on the history of a peculiar island where okama gathered as if summoned, when she was interrupted. A gang of five boys, older than her by a few years by her estimation, stepped out of an alley and approached her. Warily, she noted that though one boy looked as if he was merely approaching her to speak to her, the others moved to form a loose cordon around her. She had met their kind before at Ohara. Around 11-13 years of age, at the fringes of puberty, boys felt compelled to prove their budding manliness by intimidating those too weak to stop them. Fear crept into her heart: her previous encounters with such boys had ended badly for her on multiple occasions. Last time they had really tried to hurt her before Professor Clover had intervened and managed to scare them off.

"Hey there, whatcha doin' readin' such a big book?" the lead boy asked with what he imagined was a manly swagger, though came off comically.

"Go away," Robin said softly. She knew better than to give bullies any attention, though it rarely helped to try and ignore them, and this time was no different.

"Come on, we're just trying to be friendly," said another. "What are you reading?"

"I said go away," she said, still more softly. She was in trouble, and she knew it.

"Let's see it!" said a third, who shoved her forcibly from behind, while another seized her book before it fell out of her grasp. The fourth boy leafed through her book.

"Just a buncha fancy words," he said scornfully. "What are you, some sorta smartass?"

"Give me my book back," Robin replied.

"Check it out!" said the fifth with glee. "There's money inside!"

"Holy shit!" the fourth said, as they began to pull the bills out. "Thousands!"

"That's not yours," Robin said calmly, though she was shaking.

"Looks like it's ours now," said the second boy.  
"Do you got any more, nerd princess?" the third boy said, echoing Zoro.

"No," Robin replied, her voice now quavering, "give me my book back."

"Are you sure you're tellin' us the truth?" replied the third boy.

"Eh, I can make sure," said the leader, who then pulled out a pocket knife. "You got any more money, nerd princess?" Robin's eyes widened significantly, tears springing up.

"Look, she's gonna cry," laughed the fifth.

"Not yet," said the first, brandishing the knife. "But she will."

Usopp saw the knife, of course, and immediately, instinctively moved, running towards Robin as he readied Kabuto. He was too unprepared, and the boy's knife stroke seemed imminent, but then it happened.

5 bouken, awkwardly held together in one lump, hit the boy in the side of the head, hard. The sure stroke lifted the bully clean off his feet and sent him flying into the nearest building, where he collapsed in an awkward pile.

"What the hell?" the others shouted.

Roronoa Zoro had appeared, having re-acquired 15 bouken (probably by beating up that dojo instructor again, though no-one ever knew), and somehow wandered back to be in the right place at the right time. "Leave my friend alone!" he somehow shouted through a mouthful of five bouken.

"Get that punk!" another bully shouted, and the four remaining boys rushed in around Robin, who looked endlessly shocked. Two came in from the sides, and two outward strokes floored them, and a third rushed him from the front, only to be knocked aside by the bouken in Zoro's mouth. The fourth, smarter than his comrades, pulled another knife and tried jumping Zoro from behind. His gambit would have succeeded, but…

"Dos fluer!" Robin said, crossing her arms. Two arms sprouted out of the boy's shoulders, and two little fists pounded at his skull.

"Ow!" he yelped, falling to the ground. He looked up to see Zoro standing over him, a wolfish grin on his child's face. All 15 bouken descended, and the last of the boys were dealt with.

Usopp, having cleared half the distance between himself and Robin, stopped. Other passersby had gathered, watching the altercation and its aftermath. Usopp approached them, but they made no sign of noticing him, and then remembered that they would not recognize Sogeking.

"That was pretty cool…" Zoro observed. "The way you smacked that kid with your hands. Can you teach me to do that?"

Robin chuckled. "No," she replied, "you need to eat a devil fruit to do that."

"Seriously?" Zoro pouted. "Feh." He set his bouken down and started picking up the money as Robin picked up the book.

"Thanks, Zoro," Robin said simply, though she was much more grateful than that. She was still in a bit of shock from how much danger she had been in.

"Eh, no problem," Zoro replied, smiling. "Now what the hell are we supposed to be looking for?"

Robin smiled in return. "Pizzerias," she said. "They shouldn't be hard to find." They put the money back into the book, then departed, leaving a rather flabbergasted crowd in their wake. Usopp watched as they departed, then saw something move in the corner of his vision. He saw someone looking at him, a rough-looking pirate type, who then turned and dashed off in another direction. Beneath the mask, Usopp smiled. Phase two was done before phase one had even been completed.

But phase one took longer than expected. For such a small island, there were a lot of places where pizza could be acquired. There were three proper pizzerias, but seven other restaurants also sold pizza in one form or another, and many of the restaurants were reluctant to sell all of their ingredients at once, even at market value. The straw-hats were, as in all things, persistent, and eventually offered enough money that no restaurateur, or indeed no sane sentient being, could refuse. Enough money that the restaurants would all deliver the goods to the Thousand Sunny as well, given that the straw-hats were currently too infirm to manually transport large amounts of anything. The sun hung low over the Western horizon by the time they were done, but they were indeed done. It had taken the rest of their day and a whopping total of 9 million Beli, but they had acquired all the pizza and pizza ingredients in town.

"Oi," Sanji commented. "You can't keep all the pizza like that."

"Why not?" Usopp returned.

"That pizza isn't going to last very long, and we need to keep it out in the…" he paused as Zoro tore in, hiding behind the old man's legs.

"What are you doing now you little snot?" Sanji asked. In response, a hand popped out of the back of his leg, touching Zoro on the forehead.

"Tag!" came a call from the other end of the ship.

"Zoro's it! Run for it Karl!" came Brook's voice from still elsewhere.

"Damnit old man!" Zoro shouted, but he was smiling, and dashed off in pursuit.

"Anyway, the pizza will go bad like that. We either need to heat them or cool them."

"But we have to keep them outside," Usopp pondered.

"I'm on it," Franky said simply, and in minutes he had prepared a shallow heating pit covered in a grille, upon which the pizzas could be kept warm and edible, at least for as long as they needed them to be. With Franky's signature attention to detail, he included a control panel allowing them to adjust temperature or turn it off.

"I thought we were going to eat them," Luffy pouted.  
Nami hit him. "We're holding them hostage!"

"Oooh," Luffy said, amazed. "From who?"

Nami snorted. "It was better when he was deaf."

Atop the pizzas, which were kept low to the heating surface, they piled the other ingredients. They had left flour out of the equation, but had acquired all the marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni. Franky also stitched a large cargo net together to form somewhat of a loose sack that held the supplies together: visible from the outside, but secure. The next step was to fill a balloon with a specific substance, and suspend that balloon from the mainmast above the hoarded pizza supplies, and finally there was one last favor Usopp had asked of Franky, something he should put in position now before the final showdown. All the straw-hats gathered together to observe their handiwork.

"Alright, time for dinner," Sanji declared, slowly walking off towards the gallery.

"Oh boy!" Luffy said excitedly, "pizza!"

"Not the pizza!" everyone yelled in return.

_Author's Note: Originally this was combined with Chapter 6, but it all got entirely too long for my tastes, so I split them down the middle, but still released them together. Reviews please ;)_


	6. Showdown

Chapter 6: Showdown

Dinner that evening was enjoyable, and again quite normal, though this time it was actually Zoro, Robin, and Brook making most of the noise, continuing their game of tag between courses. Dinner and dessert passed, the dishes were finished, and the old folks shambled off to bed: it had been a busy day for them. Franky especially looked dogged, as he had run almost 36 hours without a prune juice refill. Fortunately he had filled up just before he had been pinched from his timeline. Sanji and Nami again went off to bed together, while Franky and Luffy went below to the boys' room. Chopper had already been sleeping there for some time.

Usopp stood from his seat at the dinner-table with the deliberate movement of a man whose stomach had been quite satisfied. "Come on, you kids," he said to Zoro, Brook, and Robin, "time for bed."

"I'm not tired," Zoro sulked.  
"We still want to play tag!" Brook added. Usopp looked to Robin, hoping to find in her the more sensible opinion that her adult self would have asserted, but she simply nodded in agreement with her child nakama.

Usopp sighed. He thought for a second of what to do. Everyone should be asleep soon, according to his timetable, so that they would all be safely out of the way when Bonney came calling, which could be any time soon. Again, he utilized the surefire option for dealing with children: bartering. "If you go to bed now, I'll tell you a special bedtime story," he said confidentially.

Zoro, self-nominated spokesman for the kids, responded. "What kinda story?"

"A ghost story," Usopp said, his voice taking on a sinister tone. "About our terrible adventure on the zombie island of Thriller Bark!"

"Zombies?" Brook yelped, "eeek! The living dead give me the creeps!"

"What about walking skeletons?" Usopp said. This was an odd turn for Brook.

"Skeletons are awesome!" Brook shouted, "but scary!"

Usopp resolved to take them to the boys' room. He removed the cushions from the low-lying couch and crafted somewhat of a make-shift futon for the kids to sit on (with the idea that they could fall asleep there), then set a lantern in front of him. He lowered the oil feed on the lantern so it flickered eerily. This was Usopp, the teller of tall tales, one hundred percent in his element.

He told the tale of Thriller Bark from beginning to end, filling in the parts that he did not experience personally with fanciful exaggerations of what actually happened to the others, part of which ended up with Luffy being eaten by Cerberus the guard dog. Brook was thrilled to see that a three-headed zombie dog had actually existed.

"But Zoro was captured second, and nobody even noticed," Usopp said of Zoro's capture and shadow-removal.

"Feh," Zoro said. "I told you my future self was a wuss!" Robin stuck her tongue out at him, but in a friendly way.

The night dragged on and the tale continued. Zoro found a new faith in himself when he heard of his defeat of the zombie samurai, Ryuuma. Brook marveled at his future as a skeleton man. Zoro and Robin argued fiercely over the implications of Robin's fight with Zoro's shadow-zombie, Jigoroh, and whether that meant she was stronger than him. They were awestruck by Usopp's description of the fight against Oz.

"But just when we thought you had Moria under control," he said, indicating Robin, "bam! He slid up to you and snip-snap! Tore your shadow right off!"

Robin gasped, clutching Zoro's hand, which prompted an arrogant smirk from the boy. She realized her error and retracted her hand, sticking her tongue out at him again. But Zoro received his due comeuppance soon.

"Then Moria began to suck all the shadows from all the zombies into himself! 800, 900, 1000 shadows! He was bigger than this ship, and totally invincible!"

Zoro now grabbed Robin's hand in fear, and he was embarrassed in turn. Brook giggled.

"What's so funny?" Zoro said, with an edge to his voice that was all too familiar.

"Karl says you two should get a room," Brook said. "Karl!" he said again in mock embarrassment, "that's a horrible thing to say!"

Usopp finished the tale, and the children nodded off, falling asleep on the futon with Zoro in the middle and Robin and Brook on either side. Usopp placed a small blanket over all three, enough that it barely covered the length of their bodies. At that moment, as if it were right on schedule, he heard a shout coming from outside.

"Straw-hats! You're not gonna get away with this! Show yourselves!"

It was time. Usopp grabbed Kabuto and stepped outside. First he moved over to the control panel on the heating pit and turned it off. Then they came into view. For a supernova's vessel, the ship was largely unremarkable, something that could blend in anywhere. Indeed the most notable thing about it was the supernova herself, with her flowingly flamboyant pink hair and provocative style of dress, standing at the prow of her vessel. Usopp knew that if looks could kill, he'd be six feet under by now, given the glare on Bonney's face that had blind fury etched on every inch of her otherwise pretty face.

But, for the first time in a long time, Usopp was unafraid. Even with all his nakama sleeping and otherwise incapacitated, he knew he had absolute control of this situation.

"Hey," he said, his voice lowering into the tone he often used while lying. "Have you come looking for something? Because we probably have it."

"I know you have it!" Bonney snarled. "You… you…" she searched for a particularly vicious word, but came up empty, "you… people stole all the pizza in town!" She cracked her knuckles, "I was going to leave your crew alive to wallow in your weakness, but since you were stupid enough to try and get revenge on me, I'm just gonna destroy you all."

"Thanks," Usopp replied. "I was just going to ask if you were the one who did this to my nakama."

A vein twitched in Bonney's face, her anger deepening at having fallen into Usopp's trap. "Keep talking, smartass," she said scathingly. "In half a minute, you're gonna be an old-ass man with every bone in his body broken!"

In response, Usopp whipped out Kabuto and fired a shot at the balloon above the hoarded supplies. Upon impact, the balloon exploded into some sort of clear, viscous fluid, which splattered onto the pizzas and ingredients.

Bonney snarled. "What did you do to them?"

"Oil," Usopp replied smoothly. He loaded a firebird star into Kabuto, and fired it straight up into the air, its brilliant flame lighting up the nighttime cove. Bonney's eyes widened as she finally understood it all, and Usopp loaded another firebird star. "Have you ever tasted burnt pizza?" he asked. "Because that's what you'll get if you don't fix my nakama now!" He stretched Kabuto back and took aim, ready to fire.

"And what'll stop me from just killing you where you stand?" Bonney said, though there was an undertone of fear in her voice.

"Kill me, age-change me, whatever," Usopp replied. "I'll let go of the firebird star, and you'll get burnt pizza anyway."

Bonney's entire crew had gathered around their captain, observing the odd exchange. They all assumed that Bonney was simply toying with this odd young man until she finally crushed him utterly, and were there to watch the fireworks. Usopp knew better, however. In all his time at sea, he had been able to study the attitudes of obsessive gluttons, and knew the grip that this sort of thing had on her mind.

"Fine," Bonney relented. "I'll fix your nakama."

"What?" her crew roared incredulously.

"Captain, you can't be serious," said one crewmate specifically. "Just kill this guy!"

In some deep corner of her mind where her pizza-lust had no dominion, she knew her crewmate was right. She was going to restore the straw-hats, the most dangerous pirates she had ever encountered, for pizza. But as she thought about it, she knew it was worth it. "I'm serious," she said, turning to her crewmate with a look of pure madness in her eyes. "Deadly serious."

Her crew nodded slowly in unison, stepping away carefully. They knew what she was like when she got in a mood like this.

"Come on over," Usopp said. "Alone."

Bonney's ship pulled in closer to the _Thousand Sunny_, and she leapt aboard. She walked carefully through the ship, terrified that she might do something to provoke Usopp and see the pizza ruined. "Where are they?" she asked.

Usopp shifted his stance slightly, so he could motion in a general direction while still keeping the menace of Kabuto prepared. "Through those doors there."

"Right," Bonney replied. "This will take a couple minutes." The tone in her voice was deferential, a tone that hadn't crept out of that throat in many a year.

"Okay," Usopp said, taking advantage of that tone, "but I'll know if you're deceiving me." He kept Kabuto trained on the pizza as he watched Bonney scrunch her face in concentration and hold that stance for some time. About three minutes in, he felt compelled to ask. "Are you okay?"

"It takes longer than that!" another crewmate yelled from Bonney's ship. Finally, Bonney's expression returned to normal.

"Done," she said.

Usopp nodded slowly. He moved carefully, walking backwards as he kept Kabuto aimed at the pizza pile. He walked backwards through the door into the boys' room and cast a cursory glance around. Three pairs of long legs stuck out from well under the small blanket, there was no silver to be seen in Luffy's bunk, Franky had no wheels, and Chopper had his distinctive hat back. He then walked forward, going even more carefully up the stairs to the girls' room. A quick glance inside yielded a patch of blonde and a patch of orange.

"Thanks for cooperating," he said confidently.

"So I get the pizza now?" Bonney asked.

"Sure, sure," Usopp said. He set Kabuto down and stepped behind the pile of pizzas. There he secretly pulled out his impact dial. He knew he was pushing his luck with this, but he was utterly confident. "Here's your pizza!" he shouted, slapping the impact dial against the cargo-net full of pizza. The whole sack flew off the _Sunny_ and into the sea.

"The pizza!" Bonney roared in dismay, then the devil-fruit user leapt over the side in pursuit of her favorite food.

"Captain!" her crew shouted, as some dived in after her.

"Yosh!" Usopp said, rushing belowdecks. With his stunt, he had bought a few minutes before the wrath of Bonney would descend upon him. It all returned to the special thing that he had had Franky set up for him: the Coup de Burst. It wasn't something he could run on his own, but Franky had rigged it so that a simple flip of the switch would set it off. In an instant and with a deafening bang, the Sunny was sailing through the air. In minutes, they were a few kilometers away.

Once they had landed, Usopp emerged on deck, assuming that his nakama would be milling about, wondering what had happened, but they were not there. He cautiously made his way into the boys' room to find that they were all still asleep. Perhaps it was a side-effect of the age-changing, but Usopp never knew. He was pretty exhausted himself, and clambered into his bunk to sleep.

Sanji awoke first that morning, lying in an unfamiliar bed. Curious, he opened his eyes. He had only been inside this room once in his entire life, but he had long dreamt of being here: in the Promised Land. He rose to a sitting position and saw in the bed next to him an angel, a vision of beauty slumbering peacefully with orange hair like a fiery halo. Overjoyed, he stood, leaning over her sleeping form. Her gentle breathing was enough to make his heart burst. "Nami-swaaaaaan," he whispered softly. "Good morning."

Nami's shriek tore the morning calm asunder, reverberating across the ship. As the most alert of their nakama, Zoro and Robin snapped awake first, sitting up on their cushions and tossing the blanket aside.

"Zoro!" Robin said in shock. She began to blush. "What are you…?"

"I wasn't doing anything, woman!" Zoro said, blushing as well.

"What are you doing in my room?" came another shriek from above. "Get out!"

"Nami!" Zoro and Robin said simultaneously, and rushed towards the door. The others woke up as well.

"We're under attack!" Chopper said, freaking out entirely.

"Wait, Nami-swan, I just…" more loud bangs were heard from above, then Sanji flew out the girls' room door, landing face-first on the lawn.

"Ugh, Nami-swan," he moaned.

"Nah, it's just curly-cook," Franky said, calming Chopper.

"Why was I on the floor?" Brook asked. "Did we have a slumber party?"

Luffy awoke as well, staggering out of the boys' room. "Oi, Sanji, wake up," he said, standing over Sanji's prone form. "It's breakfast time!" Then he looked around himself, seeing the bright, sunny morning. "Hey. Where did the mist go?"

"And the log pose reset!" Nami shouted in alarm. "Usopp, what the hell happened last night?"

Usopp did not answer, simply shrugging. He did not tell the wondrous tale of the Thousand Sunny Day Care and Rest Home, the story of how the brave sniper Usopp single-handedly bested one of the Eleven Supernovas. His nakama would never know.

He was a brave warrior of the sea, and brave warriors did not need to brag about their feats.

_Author's Note: So that is the end of this one. I was under a bit of deadline pressure this time, as I must soon depart to a Washington DC Internship, which could absorb a lot of time, though I also want to try my hand at a timeskip speculation fic. A little more ZoRo in it than might be proper, but I think I can be excused for that, eh? Reviews will be treasured!_


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